The Ice Cream Truck (2017)

Plot: Mary moves back to her suburban hometown, to find that the suburbs are scarier in more ways than she ever remembered.

There may be spoilers the rest of the review

Verdict: Desperate Housewives: Serial Killer Edition

Story: The Ice Cream Truck starts as Mary (Russo) returns to her suburban home town to start a new life, all while her family finishes off school and work before joining her. Mary gets to meet the gossip girls Jessica (Barraford), Christina (Walter) and Katie (Towns-Cuellar), the creepy delivery man (Phillips) but strangest of all is an ice cream truck driving around the neighbourhood.

The ice cream truck is driven by the creepy mysterious man (Johnsen) who has a habit of inviting people into his truck and killing them. The people of the neighbourhood barely notice what is going on as this suburban nightmare grows for Mary.

Thoughts on The Ice Cream Truck

Characters/Performance – Mary is the wife and mother who has moved before the rest of the family to get the house set up and find inspiration for her latest writing project. Mary does struggle to enjoy returning to a suburban neighbourhood with people just waiting for the next chapter of gossip. Max is the teenage son of one of the neighbours, he is the local pot dealer which does help Mary get through the nosey neighbours. He also plays into the desperate housewives feel to the film. The Ice Cream Man drives around the neighbourhood trying to sale ice cream but if you disrespect him he will just kill the customer, he is social awkward fitting the killer stereotype.

Performance wise, Deanna Russo is impressive in the leading role, fitting the character required very well, John Redlinger also gives us a good performance as both the two characters offer up the Desperate Housewives feel to the film. Emil Johnsen gives us the horror side of the film as we get to see the darker character that when on screen is somebody you want to watch.

Story – The story does show us how difficult adjusting to the suburban neighbourhood for our lead character Mary, we get the temptation of romance, dealing with gossiping women and the strange people lurking around every corner. We honestly do get a true Desperate Housewives feel about most of the scenes, which is fine for the most part but if you want the horror side of the film it only comes out in the story in small parts.

Horror/Comedy/Mystery – The horror side of the film is used well when we see it, we have an Ice Cream Man that kills people, but I feel we did need to see this side of the film slightly more. The comedy I felt was mostly humour focused on the suburban lifestyle with the mystery being focused on just why the killer does everything.

Settings – The suburban setting does wonders for this film because it shows the new difficult world Mary must adjust too after spending her adult life in the big city. We get to see just how she doesn’t enjoy everything in this location.

Special Effects – Most of the kills are cleverly filmed off camera which lowest the need to spend too much time on the effects but we are left to imagine what is going on.

Final Thoughts – This is a different horror comedy that does work on levels you didn’t expect because it shows us how difficult the suburban life can be.

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